May 23, 2002.One of these
days, someone is going to ask: what the hell is going on at Harvard?
Andrew Weil,
John Mack,
Gary Schwartz, and now John Hagelin, winner of the
1994 Ig
Nobel Peace Prize. The latter is
a Harvard-trained physicist turned Transcendental
Meditation proponent. Even after more than eight years of riding the
same pony in place,
Hagelin
claims he is getting a great reception on Capitol Hill for a proposal to
spend $60 million a year and establish a $1 billion dollar endowment to
promote TM as a means to end terrorism and establish world peace.

The proposal calls for the establishment of a permanent
group of 40,000 experts practicing specific “technologies of
consciousness,” including Transcendental Meditation and other advanced
meditation techniques, that have been
scientifically shown to neutralize
acute ethnic, political, and religious tensions that fuel violence,
terrorism, and social conflict.

Real scientists might challenge the "scientifically shown"
clause in the above statement. Hagelin is the same fellow who did similar
promotions for TM under Clinton. In 1993, Bob Park posted the following at
the American Physical Society page:

The [Maharishi University of Management's] Institute of
Science, Technology and Public Policy revealed on Tuesday that a 2-month,
$4M program to reduce crime has been underway in Washington since 5 June.
The Institute's director, John Hagelin, a Harvard-trained field theorist,
explained that a coherent field generated by 1,000 trained experts
meditating in unison has been cutting crime and enhancing the
effectiveness of President Clinton by spreading tranquility throughout the
city. This "scientific demonstration" will provide proof of a "unified
superstring field," Hagelin said, but he acknowledged that the
Supercollider will be needed to provide independent confirmation.

Hagelin
claims that in recent months he has had "meeting after meeting with
the top levels of government - the White House, the National Security
Council, the Department of State, the Department of Defense, the Army, the
House, the Senate" and he claims to have found an unprecedented positive
response to his proposal to end terrorism with thousands of people
meditating in unison, er, sorry, "experts employing technologies of
consciousness, for $60 million a year." You can contribute online to this
madness at permanentpeace.org.
These clowns made a similar claim years ago about how they had eliminated
crime in Fairfield, Iowa. I quote from my entry on
TM

One TM® study by a MUM physics professor, Dr. Robert
Rabinoff, claimed that the Maharishi effect was responsible for reducing
crime and accidents while simultaneously increasing crop production in the
vicinity of Maharishi University in Fairfield, Iowa.
James Randi checked with the
Fairfield Police Dept, the Iowa Dept of Agriculture, and the Dept of Motor
Vehicles and found that the Rabinoff’s data was invented (Randi 1982,
99-108).

If you are interested in what science Hagelin is talking
about, it may be based on the following (taken from an earlier
MMF page)

On another equally loony front,
the Maharishi Mahesh
Yogi was back in the news
with a plea for wealthy Americans to send him one
billion dollars so he can build facilities for a gathering of 40,000
yogic flyers who will bring world peace by bouncing around together in
his compound in India. He believes that if enough people hop while
seated in the lotus position, they will create a force field that can
repel hatred and spread happiness in the world's collective
consciousness. His belief is based upon many years of sitting on his
butt and thinking about this in his hut.

If you want a close look at this man's view of "science"
read the transcript of his
interview
with Larry King on May 12, 2002. The fact that the Maharishi is
considered one of the great religious leaders of our time says volumes
more than any rant I could work up about TM. If only he had a billion
dollars, he could save the world. God bless his holy crassness. It is a
sad commentary on our world when adulation is heaped upon someone who can
giggle and say "love and peace" at the same time. Call me cynical, but I
was taught a hero should have a little more substance than that. Maybe it
is all relative: the Maharishi looks good when you stand him next to the
political leaders of our time. In logic, we call this a false dilemma.

May 16, 2002. Ever hear of the
United
Nuwaubian Nation of Moors? It is unlikely you have, unless you are
black and poor. It's a religious group, led by Dwight York, "the
group's savior or god and described as an extraterrestrial from the planet
'Rizq'."*
York and his partner Kathy Johnson have apparently been running a child
abuse scam under the guise of leading their people from Ignorance to
Knowledge. They seem to have used the Afro-centrist card to lure young
blacks to their compound in Georgia where they forced children to perform
sex acts while they photographed and videotaped them. More than 100 people
live on the 476-acre compound, which has six-story pyramids and a large
gate with Egyptian-style hieroglyphics. Apparently, the abuse of children
has been going on since 1993. The FBI now has enough evidence to warrant
arresting the couple.

[thanks to Joe Littrell]

May 14, 2002. Several
holistic and health-conscious U.S. Senators announced today that they are
supporting legislation that would ban table salt since "it consists of 50%
chlorine, a poisonous gas." Water will also be banned because it is
two-thirds hydrogen, a highly flammable gas, and one-third oxygen, known
to be essential to combustion.

Just kidding, of course. Even our most scientifically
illiterate legislator wouldn't be so foolish as to ban salt and water, yet
Congresswoman Diane Watson is sponsoring
H. R. 4163, the Mercury in Dental Filling Disclosure and Prohibition Act.
Watson wants to ban the amalgam used in many dental fillings because
mercury, a known poison, is one of its components. (Amalgam is an alloy of
silver, copper, tin, molybdenum, mercury, and perhaps a little zinc. Small
traces of these elements may be floating freely in amalgam, but not enough
to worry about.) The total ban would take
place in 2006. By this July she wants all amalgam to come with this
warning label: "Dental amalgam contains approximately 50 percent mercury,
a highly toxic element. Such product should not be administered to
children less than 18 years of age, pregnant women or lactating women.
Such product should not be administered to any consumer without a warning
that the product contains mercury, which is a highly toxic element, and
therefore poses health risks." Where is the science to back up Ms.
Watson's concerns? Totally lacking, according to. Leon Jaroff who takes her to task in
Time magazine.

The mercury scare apparently began in 1985 with the
publication of It's All in Your Head by
Hal Huggins, a Colorado dentist who
was convinced that just about everything that ails anybody is due to the
mercury in amalgam fillings. "60 Minutes" gave the idea a big boost with a
program segment in 1990 entitled "Poison in Your Mouth." The program was
called
Toxic Television by Dr. Stephen Barrett.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services says
"there is scant evidence that the health of a vast majority of people with
amalgam is compromised." The American Dental Association (ADA)
claims that "there currently appears to be no justification for
discontinuing the use of dental amalgam." Of course, the amalgam opponents
think the ADA is part of a conspiracy to hide the real dangers of the
alloy. The ADA position is not based on economics but on science.
According to my dentist, dentists in California are advised not to comply
with a patient's request to have all his or her "mercury" fillings
removed. Removing "mercury" fillings and using plastics to refill them
would be a good way to make money, since there are many people who are
convinced, as Watson is, that their fillings are causing all their health
problems. Dentists are advised not to do the work because there is not
sufficient scientific evidence to back up the fear that fillings are
poisoning people. The fear truly is all in the patient's, or the U.S.
Representative's, head.

However, Watson does claim there is scientific support for
her position. HR 4163 states that

(7) According to certain scientific studies, Health
Canada, and the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry of the
Public Health Service of the Department of Health and Human Services,
children and pregnant women are at particular risk for exposure to mercury
contained in dental amalgam.

(8) According to the Agency for Toxic Substances and
Disease Registry, the mercury from amalgam goes through the placenta of
pregnant women and through the breast milk of lactating women, giving rise
to health risks to an unborn child or a baby.

(10) The use of mercury in any product being put into the
body is opposed by many health groups, such as the American Public Health
Association, the California Medical Association, and Health Care Without
Harm.

She does not specify the "certain studies" she refers to.
(Maybe she is thinking of one of the studies mentioned at
this site.) However,
Health Canada specifically states "A total ban on amalgam is not
considered justified," presumably because "current evidence does not
indicate that dental amalgam is causing illness in the general
population." Even so, this same group claims "there is a small percentage
of the population which is hypersensitive to mercury and can suffer severe
health effects from even a low exposure." It does not say where it got
this information. And, it is true that Health Canada warns "Whenever
possible, amalgam fillings should not be placed in or removed from the
teeth of pregnant women." But it does not explain why it gives this
warning while claiming that current evidence does not indicate that dental
amalgam is causing illness in the general population.

Watson may be right about the groups she says oppose the
use of mercury in products to be put in the body (such as thermometers),
but I couldn't find direct evidence that any of these groups opposes
dental amalgam.

May 10, 2002. According
to the
Washington Post,the Church of Scientology paid Lawrence
Wollersheim $8,674,843 to settle a lawsuit filed more than 20 years ago.
Wollersheim suffers from bipolar disorder and spent nearly $150,000 on
Scientology's mental health programs before he was driven to the brink of
suicide. In 1986, a jury awarded him $25 million in punitive damages for
what jurors called the Church's intentional and negligent "infliction of
emotional distress." In 1989, an appellate court rule that "The church's
conduct was manifestly outrageous." Wollersheim runs the Web site
Factnet.org.
[thanks to Jon ]

May 6, 2002. A reader from Spain
sent in this clip from “THE SUNDAY TIMES” (UK)

TIME TO CLOSE THE X-FILES, SAY UFO WATCHERS

For half a century, UFO sightings inspired endless conspiracy theories as
well as blockbuster films such as E.T. But close encounters of the flying
saucer kind have become such a rare event that FORTEAN TIMES, the journal
of the unexplained, has declared “ufology” dead. Editor Bob Rickard said
camcorders were so widely available that convincing footage of spacecraft
would have been obtained if Earth was being visited. “The space around us
is dead,” he said. “We are not being visited”. The world’s oldest UFO
society, the British Flying Saucer Bureau, has suspended its activities
after half a century because of the decline in sightings.

May 3, 2002.
QuackWatch has issued its analysis of the Reports of the White House
Commission on Complementary and Alternative Medicine Policy (WHCCAMP). The
commission was set up by Clinton and was loaded with quacks whose mission
in life is to see unproven and unsafe health practices delivered to the
public. The
minority report from Tieraona Low Dog, M.D. and Joseph J. Fins, M.D.
complains that the Commission's recommendations "do not appropriately
acknowledge the limitations of unproven and unvalidated "CAM"
interventions or adequately address the minimization of risk." That's
putting it mildly. The Commission considers
prayer, among other things, to be a kind of "alternative" medicine.
The
National Council Against Health Fraud cautions that "Widespread
adoption of unproven, disproven, and irrational methods would cost the
American public billions of dollars and thousands of human lives."

This commission may be the worst of Clinton's legacies.
The Chairman of the commission is James S. Gordon, M.D., a former follower
of Bhagwan Shree
Rajneesh. Gordon has even
written a book
about his former guru. We can only hope that Health and Human Services
Secretary Tommy Thompson will recognize the report for what it is and dump
it in the trashcan of history along with the Ken Starr report.

April 19, 2002.An M.D.
recently wrote and asked me to "Please define 'false hope' in your
excellent source. Several have asked me what is "false hope" when sent
home to die. I really couldn't comment, but I know you will. Thanks in
advance."

I have a hard time imagining a patient who has been sent
home to die asking his or her physician "Tell me doctor, what is false
hope?" I suppose a doctor might have said to such a patient, "I don't
want to give you any false hope. You're going to die of this disease." Or
perhaps the patient has been told he or she has a fatal disease and there
is nothing that can be done. The patient might plead: "Are you sure there
is nothing that can be done. What about putting me in a clinical
trial or what about going to one of the clinics in Tijuana where the FDA
has no say but where there might be some hope of a cure?" And the doctor
might reply: "I don't want to give you any false hope." Even then, I have
a hard time imagining a patient asking what is false hope. They'd know
what it means: it means I don't want to lie to you and recommend a useless
treatment. The treatment will be very expensive and the only things such a
treatment will change are your attitude and your bank account. Your mood
might change because you will be deluded into thinking you are being
cured. And you will certainly feel better thinking you may survive than
thinking you may die at any minute.

Some of you may have seen the recent "60 Minutes" program
that featured
Dr. Henry Friedman who treats "hopeless" cases, people with brain
cancer who have been sent home to die by their doctors. He treats his
patients with experimental drugs, which means that he experiments on his
patients. This seems morally ok because they have been told they are going
to die anyway. Dr. Friedman has some "successes," i.e., some
patients who have survived for several years after being told to go
home and die. The program featured three of his patients who seem to be
cancer-free after several years of being treated at the Duke University
Medical Center by Dr. Friedman and his staff. The program also featured
one beautiful young woman who died of her brain cancer despite Dr.
Friedman's efforts. Another young man died before his treatment could
begin, but not before Dr. Friedman bullied an insurance company into
agreeing to pay for the experimental procedures.

I have no doubt that many viewers probably sympathize with
Dr. Friedman and think the FDA is cruel for not allowing experimental
treatments of deadly cancers, and that insurance companies are evil for
not agreeing to pay for experimental procedures. After all, it looks like
Dr. Friedman is saving lives while the FDA and insurance companies are
fiddling while Rome burns. I don't agree. I don't believe Dr. Friedman has
any way of knowing why some of his patients live and most die. All he
knows is that some of his patients are still alive, but because he does no
controlled studies--he could do them on mice, he doesn't have to risk
human lives--he has no way of knowing what effect his treatments are
having. For all he knows, the ones who die under his care might
have lived longer had he not intervened.

Is he giving his patients and their families "false hope"?
Yes, but his delusions are not in the same league as the evil deceptions
of those who run clinics that charge thousands of dollars for treatments
known to be ineffective and useless. Dr. Friedman's treatments have
some scientific basis and some have been proved effective for fighting
other kinds of cancers besides brain cancer. But he is deluded in thinking
that dying patients can't wait for clinical studies to be done before
doctors can use them on patients. He is doing a clinical study; he
is experimenting on human beings; and his study design is fatally
flawed because he has no controls.

Finally, if insurance companies had to pay for every quack
experimental treatment that doctors can think up, they'd go broke paying
for completely useless treatments whose main tangible effect would be a
great increase in false hope.

March 14, 2002. The Florida
Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles has decided that the
vanity license plate of Steven Miles, electrical engineer at the
University of Florida, is "obscene or objectionable." Never mind
that he's been driving around with the plate for sixteen years. Ten people
recently signed a complaint about the plate and State has notified Miles
that his plate must be canceled. The offensive word? ATHEIST

February 13, 2002. The
Japanese translation of the Skeptic's Dictionary is no longer
available. I am unable to get in touch with translator Masataka Okubo. I
will leave the link up for the time being in the hope that this is a
temporary interruption.

In a related matter, though not related to the PBS show,
researchers at Vanderbilt University think they have identified a part of
the brain that may be the key to crabby people, those with "negative
affect." They think a region of the brain a few inches behind the nose may
be the key to understanding people who are prone to "anxiety,
irritability, anger and a range of other unpleasant moods." Like the
scientists in the PBS series, the scientists at Vanderbilt have been using
brain-imaging technology to study the moods of people.

In last week's episode on the PBS series, brain-imaging
was used to show which parts of the brain are active during different
emotional episodes such as fear and laughter. We can only speculate
what kinds of follow-up research will be done, but two avenues of
investigation seem obvious. Some scientists will be looking to develop
drugs to relieve fear, anxiety, irritability, anger, and other 'negative'
emotions. They will aim to help people in distress. Others will be looking
to develop drugs to relieve fear, anxiety, irritability, anger, and other
'negative' emotions. They will aim to make it possible for people they put
in stressful situations to be more machinelike in their soldiering.
There's a cloud in every silver lining.

January 25, 2002. I
hope everybody saw "ABC Primetime Thursday" last night. Half of the
program focused on phony "alternative"
cancer therapies. Those who think "alternative" healers are all caring and
"holistic" while M.D.s who offer chemotherapy are uncaring slobs should at
least look at
the website for the expose. Steven Rosenberg and
Stephen Barrett come off as the
ones who care, while the quacks who sell
nothing but false hope are exposed in their dens. Chris Wallace showed he
is a chip off the block of his father, Mike, as he had metal doors slide
down before him to bar him from interviewing the quacks and their
quacklings. Dr. Rosenberg's assessment of those who prey on the dying was
short and apt: they are evil.